


Heat

by bea_bickerknife



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Arson as foreplay, Bisexual Murder Girlfriends, But before TCC/The Lesson, Criminal banter, Dirty talk (but not the way you might expect), Even more irresponsible choice of venue for a sexual encounter, F/F, Fingering, Frottage, Highly irresponsible driving practices, Pretty much as much Olaf-bashing as you'd expect, Simultaneously the highest- and lowest-key birthday fic imaginable, Somewhere after TVV, Timeline you ask?, Unexpected denim, We all knew this was coming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 06:23:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12053172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bea_bickerknife/pseuds/bea_bickerknife
Summary: What does a villainess who has everything get for one who wants nothing? An abandoned logging town...and a match.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, I own none of the characters in this work, nor do I derive any remuneration from its posting.

“Have you seen the Real Estate section?”

“It’s –” Georgina’s voice hadn’t yet lost its early-morning gravel as she squinted at the clock on the coffee maker. “Seven thirteen on a Sunday morning, and I already own a house. Take an educated guess.”

“Oh, but you really _should_ have a look at it. There’s a feature at the bottom of the second page that I think you’ll find…intriguing.”

“ _Fine_ , Esmé,” she sighed in her most long-suffering tone, deciding a white lie would have to suffice until she was more awake. “I’m flipping to it as we speak.”

A pause. “I don’t hear rustling.”

 _Dammit_. Shuffling hurriedly across the kitchen, she seized the unopened newspaper from the counter and crinkled it pointedly beside the mouthpiece of the telephone.

The voice on the other end sounded as if it was fighting back a snicker. “Now I hear too _much_ rustling.”

“Oh, for _fuck’s_ …” Manicured fingers rifled past World News, Local Happenings, Business, Society, and Uninformed Opinions until she located the second page of Real Estate. “Perplexing Private Purchase of Paltryville,” she read aloud.

“Keep going.”

“The deserted logging town of Paltryville was sold at auction this week, fetching a price more than five times its appraised value. ‘No other bids were entered,’ noted real estate auctioneer Eugene Heatherton III, adding that his firm was ‘delighted, shocked, and frankly slightly concerned’ by the unusually high bid. ‘Not that we’re asking any questions,’ he clarified hastily, tossing a heavy-looking briefcase into a waiting helicopter. ‘Everything about the payment was unmarked – I mean, unremarkable,’ he added, leaping aboard after it. ‘No, absolutely no questions whatsoever. With a sale as obviously legitimate and above-board as this one, there’s no need for any questions.’

Little is known of the buyer, a private citizen whose name is listed on the deed as Vivian Florence Dubois. Her purchase of the derelict settlement includes the remains of Lucky Smells Lumber Mill, a facility formerly renowned for its industry-leading production efficiency and most recently noted in this publication as the site of the grisly immolation of pioneering optometrist Dr. Georgina Orwell. When reached for comment, a representative of Ms. Dubois stated that her interest in the remains of this former landmark – the only structure left standing in Paltryville following the collapse of an unusually-shaped eye clinic in a freak accident earlier this year – is ‘purely recreational.’”

Reaching the end of the article, Georgina paused to take a sip of her coffee. “So, Vivian,” she asked. “What kind of recreation do you have in mind?”


	2. Chapter 2

The knocking began just after lunch.

“All right, all _right_ ,” Georgina shouted, already halfway down the stairs.

The pounding intensified.

“I’m _coming_ , Esmé! Trust me, I haven’t forgotten about –” Swinging the door open, she found herself stunned into momentary silence before she managed to finish her sentence. “You.”

“Me,” agreed Esmé cheerfully, obviously pleased with the reaction she’d provoked.

The City’s sixth-most-important financial advisor had turned up on her front steps in unusual outfits frequently enough for Georgina to have grown accustomed to it, or as close to accustomed as she was likely to get to the sight of an allegedly sane woman dressed in a purple paisley tailcoat and matching top hat, or a lace cape the length of a city block, or a tutu constructed entirely of broken glass. She had seen the inside of no fewer than sixteen of the financier’s seventy walk-in closets, not to mention at least three of her dressing rooms and her second-largest shoe dungeon. Until this moment, she’d taken it as a reasonable assumption that nothing Esmé wore could ever really surprise her, precisely because _everything_ she wore was surprising.

 _You know what happens when you assume_ , she reminded herself. _It makes an ass out of – oh, dear **god** , her **ass** in those_...

They may have been produced by an eccentric and unpronounceable German fashion designer, and they almost certainly cost more than a month’s rent on a townhouse, but the fact remained that Esmé Squalor was standing in the dazzling morning sunlight wearing a scoop-necked white tee shirt, high-heeled black boots…and a pair of _jeans_.

“They’re back _in_ as of this morning,” she explained. An arch of her back and a pop of her hip elevated her figure from divine to positively sinful. “Flattering, aren’t they?”

Georgina’s eyes lingered, taking a moment to fully appreciate the way the dark fabric stretched over the derrière she’d been admiring, clinging to slender thighs and softening the angles of Esmé’s hips into curves. “ _Exceptionally_ ,” she agreed at last.

Evidently satisfied, Esmé reached out toward her. “Ready, darling?”

“Of course.” With the door latched behind her, Georgina slipped her hand into Esmé’s. Just as the frisson of contact died down, the bottom dropped out of her stomach for a second time as, with a sharp tug and a cherry-red grin, the taller woman sent her tripping down the stairs and into her arms.

“I’m glad _you’re_ ready, but I’m afraid _I’m_ not. Well,” she amended, so close that her lips teased against Georgina’s as she spoke, “not _yet_ , anyway.”

The first hint of an early autumn chill hung in the air, but Georgina knew it wasn’t responsible for the shiver that rippled down her spine when Esmé kissed her.

Everything about Esmé Squalor seemed calculated to overwhelm. Her perfume insinuated itself into the corners of every room she entered and lingered there like an amber-scented ghost long after she left. Rich and resonant, her voice commanded absolute attention at any volume, and there was a kind of glow around her, tangible rather than visible, a neon hum that electrified her presence so that nearness to her always felt like both a thrill and a risk. Georgina had never considered herself a thrill seeker, let alone a risk taker, but Esmé had a way of making her forget that.

She kissed with a lazy, knee-weakening decadence, all supple lips and greedy tongue and unhurried caresses. “ _There_ ,” she murmured, pulling away just as she felt the smaller woman beginning to melt against her. “ _Now_ we can go.”

Legs slightly shaky, Georgina spent a few pleasantly unsteady moments enjoying the view as Esmé strode off toward the street.

Then she noticed what was parked there.

The question _what on earth_ jostled immediately against the words _no, absolutely not_ and the phrase _gaudy eyesore_. What came out of her mouth, however, was a single plaintive syllable: “Why?”

“It’s fast,” said the financier matter-of-factly. “You said I should get something fast."

“I did, but – ”

“And the windows are tinted,” she added, tapping her index finger against the dark glass on the driver’s side door by way of a demonstration. “You said you didn’t want to be recognized.”

Georgina pinched the bridge of her nose. “And you didn’t think anything _else_ about this car might attract attention?”

“Now, just a minute. You said you didn’t want to be _recognized_. You didn’t say anything at all about attracting attention.”

“It’s _gold_!” 

Esmé glanced down at her fingernails. “Lots of cars are gold, Georgie.”

“Lots of cars are _painted_ gold. Is this car painted gold, Esmé?”

Glossy hair caught the light as she shook her head.

“Is this car, in fact, _plated_ with gold?” The look on the optometrist’s face was one Esmé had most recently received from a boarding school headmistress. “A precious metal that a normal person might use to decorate a piece of jewelry, not a Maserati?”

“If I were _normal_ , darling,” she drawled, “you wouldn’t keep me around.” Sliding in behind the wheel, she leaned across to fling open the curbside door. “It’s a _very_ long walk to Paltryville, you know, and the train doesn’t stop there anymore, so I’m afraid this really is the most practical option.”

The engine snarled to life just as Georgina opened her mouth to voice her strenuous objection to the use of the word _practical_ ; with a few choice but inaudible expletives, she lowered herself into the passenger seat and locked the door behind her. Long white fingers gripped the gearshift, the snarl blossomed into an all-out roar, and with a shriek of rubber on asphalt, they were away.


	3. Chapter 3

According to the map, it should have taken six hours to reach Paltryville.  

Three hours and fifty-six minutes after their departure from Georgina’s brownstone roused the entirety of the University District from its scholarly slumber, Esmé activated the parking brake, jangled her keys out of the ignition, and stepped smoothly out into the piney silence of the Finite Forest.

A moment later, Georgina emerged, rubbing absentmindedly at her tailbone. “Hope you weren’t too attached to your suspension. I really don’t think it was designed for logging roads.”

“You’re just jealous. Remind me again, darling, what was _your_ record for that drive?”

“Four hours,” muttered Georgina.

“ _And_?”

“And seven minutes, but it was raining at the time and my car was designed for _driving_ , not showing off, so if you take that into account, then I was –”

“Still eleven minutes slower, darling, but who’s counting?” called Esmé, who was already teetering up the logging trail in boots that were exactly as well-suited to hiking as her car had been to off-road driving. “Come _on_ , Georgie, let’s see this mill I’ve heard so much about!”

With a sigh, Georgina started after her. “You do remember that when I tell you about it, I’m usually complaining, don’t you? It wasn’t some kind of summer camp up here.”

“I never went to summer camp,” Esmé began, “but –”

“You don’t say.” Georgina stifled a smirk as the younger woman paused to yank the stiletto heel of her left boot free from a partially-buried log on the trail.

“ _But_ ,” she continued, picking up her pace, “it’s always sounded like a thoroughly miserable experience, and I know you had a thoroughly miserable time at Lucky Smells, so the comparison can’t possibly be _that_ far off.”

“You know, it wasn’t so bad in the beginning – well, it was dull, obviously, but the money was good, and the research looked promising, and it wasn’t as if anyone was going to bother me.” The hypnotist snorted derisively. “Things didn’t get _miserable_ until Olaf showed up.”

They had reached a fork in the path, and Esmé paused to let Georgina catch up. “That’s why you hate this place so much, isn’t it? Because of him?”

When she thought back on those days – and despite her best efforts, she _did_ occasionally think back on them – Georgina saw a series of decisions, every single one of them wrong, compounding in their wrongness until she tripped down her fiery trapdoor and into the choice that finally set things right again. She supposed it might be equally accurate to say that she hated this place because of herself, or because it reminded her too strongly of who he always seemed to make her; however, the distinction felt like splitting hairs, so she nodded.

With a small, strange smile, Esmé started wordlessly up the right-hand path.

After a few steps, Georgina stopped dead in her tracks. “Wait. How did you know which fork to take?”

“Oh, lucky guess, I suppose,” shrugged Esmé a little too breezily.

Grey eyes narrowed. “I don’t seem to recall you asking me for directions on the drive, either.”

“ _Well..._ do you remember on the phone, when I told you I bought the town on a whim?”

“Do I remember something that happened nine hours ago?” Georgina frowned. “Yes _,_ Esmé. I’m not _that_ old.”

“And I asked you to come with me because I’d never been here before?”

The frown deepened, accompanied by a slow, suspicious nod.

“Well, it was a rather premeditated whim, and ‘never’ may have been a _slight_ exaggeration.”

“So you lied to me.”

Esmé knew that tone, and she covered the distance back to Georgina as quickly as she could manage without actually appearing to hurry. “ _Yes_ , Georgie,” she admitted, cupping the stormy face in her hands. “Of _course_ I lied to you, but I promise you’ll forgive me just as soon as you see why I did it, so _hurry_ _up_.” Hoping she’d managed to pique her interest rather than her ire, she turned on her heel and picked her way back up the trail.

“You’d better hope I do." As she started up the familiar path, curiosity edged out anger a little further with every step, and it occurred to her that Esmé might know her a little _too_ well.


	4. Chapter 4

A breeze rustled through the pines, the setting sun cast long, shifting shadows over the ashy ground, and the remains of Paltryville crunched beneath their feet.

“What’s that smell?” Georgina wrinkled her nose, neatly sidestepping the corner of a charred sign that she knew for a fact used to read **MILLER’S TOOL AND DIE** , but now, rather ominously, read only **DIE**.

Esmé had already reached the enormous wooden wall that bore the peeling logo of Lucky Smells Lumber Mill. “It’s part of the surprise,” she gritted out as she pushed with vigorous but fruitless determination at the gate.

The sight of the City’s sixth-most-important financial advisor struggling to maintain traction in a losing battle against a dilapidated mill fence was enough to make Georgina long for a camera. Drawing even with her, she leaned her shoulder against the planks and gave an almighty shove.

“Just have to be rough with it.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the ear-splitting creak of rusty hinges as the gate swung inward.

“Mm, now, where have I heard that before?” Esmé slipped through the gate with a suggestive grin and ushered Georgina in with a wave of her hand. “Come, darling.”

“Probably the same place I’ve heard _that_ ,” smirked Georgina.

Unseasonably balmy and increasingly thick with that not-quite-foreign, not-quite-familiar scent, the air seemed to grow heavier with every step toward the hulking ruin of the mill. Anywhere else, it would have been the aroma itself that made her slightly dizzy and the exertion of the hike that sent her pulse throbbing through her chest like a misplaced migraine. In this place, however, surrounded by warped boards and mossy logs and gum-grimy walls, Georgina recognized the suffocating unease that inevitably descended when she found herself in a space she’d shared with _him_.

 _Never should have agreed to come_ , she berated herself. _Should’ve known better, should’ve told her to go without you, should’ve left this place to rot, should’ve…_

Should’ve been paying attention to where she was going. 

“Not that I’m complaining, of course,” said Esmé, wrapping her arms around the woman who had just collided headlong with her when she turned and stopped outside the mill doors, “but are you absolutely _sure_ you don’t need to check your eyeglass prescription?”

Georgina rolled her eyes. “What I _need_ is for you to tell me what possible reason you could have for luring me out under false pretenses to visit a place I hate, particularly on my –"

 _Shit_.

A slow, sly smile spread over Esmé’s face and she pulled back, eyes sparkling in the dusky light. “Well, if you won’t say it, I will: on your _birthday_.”

 ** _Shit_** , Georgina thought, more emphatically this time. “How did you work it out?”

“The same way you worked out mine, I’m sure,” replied Esmé. “Just some good, clean research and a little sleuthing in the Hall of Rec – ”

“You bribed a librarian, didn’t you?”

“And risk being seen in a _library_? Never,” she shuddered. “No, I hired a _terribly_ eager little journalist to dig it up for me, although I suppose it doesn’t quite count as hiring if I didn’t pay her.” Her perfectly-sculpted brows knit together. “I really don’t see why you insisted on keeping it from me, darling. It’s not as if I don’t know you’re older than I am, and you know perfectly well that’s never bothered me in the slightest.”

“It’s not the age I was worried about.” Not entirely true, but certainly not a bald-faced lie, either.

“Then what _were_ you worried about?”

Georgina flung out her arm in a gesture that encompassed the mill, the lumber yard, and the forest beyond the fence. “ _This_ , Esmé! For God’s sake, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you making some kind of _fuss_!”

“When I make a _fuss_ , Georgie, you’ll know it.” Her voice was unusually quiet, and she was staring down at Georgina with an expression so intense that it was almost physically uncomfortable to meet her eyes. “But there _was_ something you wanted, and I wanted it too, and you certainly weren’t going to ask, so…”

Esmé reached into her pocket. For one absurd and disorienting and utterly terrifying moment, the optometrist thought she was about to pull out a ring, but then she uncurled her fingers and stretched out her hand. There, like a square black stain in the center of her white palm, lay a monogrammed matchbook, and as she took a deep breath, Georgina finally recognized the scent she was inhaling.

 _Kerosene_.


	5. Chapter 5

With an air of finality that implied she’d had quite enough manual labor for the day, Esmé tossed her shovel aside.

The firebreak hadn’t been her idea.

Distinctly keen to avoid celebrating her birthday with an inadvertent wildfire, Georgina had insisted that they clear a perimeter around the mill to keep the flames from spreading too far beyond the structure itself. The final half-hour of the task had been completed under the less-than-optimal conditions of near-total darkness and near-constant complaining from the City’s sixth-least-patient financial advisor, but it had been completed nonetheless, and the light of the rising moon illuminated an irregular ring of bare earth around the building.

“Admit it, darling,” Esmé called, raking her fingers through her hair as she strode toward the doors where her companion was waiting. “This is going to be _much_ more fun than lighting candles on a cake.”

“And I won’t have to pretend to like cake.”

Even in the dark, Esmé’s eye-roll was unmistakable. “Yes, that’s _precisely_ why I arranged all of this.” She reached for Georgina’s hand, cradling it in a gesture of mock sincerity as she stared into her eyes her with a long-suffering expression. “I simply couldn’t bear the thought of subjecting you to so much as a single bite of _gâteau d’anniversaire_ against your will.”

“Out of curiosity, why _did_ you arrange it?”

The financier tilted her head slightly to one side. “Isn’t it obvious?”

It wasn’t, but Georgina wasn’t about to admit it.

“Humor me,” she replied instead. A dexterous thumb stroked a tingling path back and forth across her knuckles, and she felt herself losing focus.

“Are you sure you want to know right this minute?” Esmé reached for her hand the perfectly-manicured hand to her lips, words whispering like silk over the delicate skin there. “Because I wouldn’t want you to forget, and it seems to me you’re a little… _distracted_.”

There was a fractional pause as Georgina willed the weakness out of her knees. “And it seems to _me_ like you’re stalling.”

She was, but Esmé wasn’t about to admit it. “This is the last place you saw him.” She shrugged, calling on every scrap of her theatrical acumen to maintain a casual façade. “I thought you’d like it gone.”

A subtle shift of stance, an upward flick of the gaze – Esmé may have been an actress, but the hypnotist preferred to read the sorts of signs that couldn’t be rehearsed away. “And _why_ would I like that?” she asked. It was goading, pure and simple, but something inside her craved a confession. _A confession of **what** , exactly?_ Georgina inquired of herself, watching with a tide of rising panic in her chest as angular features turned hard and jagged. _Just can’t leave well enough alone, can you? Just have to keep pushing her, and for **what**? For your ego? For reassurance that you’re not some kind of **fad** to her? That she –_

Esmé’s voice was bedroom-low when it cut through the silence, but there was steel behind it now, not silk, and when her eyes met Georgina’s, something seemed to flash behind them. “It’s the last place he _hurt_ you.” Her grip on Georgina’s hand tightened. “The only one that’s still standing, and in my experience, the only way to forget a place like that is to _erase it from the map_.”

Georgina had spent her life in the company of unusual people. She had associated with horse-thieving veterinarians and snake-charming grammarians, sinister doctors and indoctrinated sisters, ignoble volunteers and villainous nobility, and yet as she stood in quiet shock – _there,_ shouted a triumphant voice from the back of her mind, **_there’s_** _your confession –_  she felt absolutely certain that out of all the peculiar, criminal, and criminally peculiar people she had known, Esmé Squalor was the only one who could make arson sound like therapy.

One final question spilled from her mouth before she could stop it. “Why not burn it yourself?”

For the second time that night, Esmé held out the book of matches. Moonlight and pine boughs cast restless silver shadows over her face, and as a wicked smirk flickered at the corners of her mouth, the red of her lips looked nearly black.

“Because I want to watch.”


	6. Chapter 6

Aside from the silence and the shattered windows, the interior of Lucky Smells was just as Georgina remembered it.

 _Well_ , she thought as she surveyed the ground in front of her, _and aside from **this**_.

She had paused at the edge of a large, sharply-tapered oblong patch of wood chips so thoroughly saturated with fuel that it seemed to give off a dull, oily gleam even in the gloom. At the center of the oblong hulked a familiar iron furnace, and from its edges stretched a series of long, straight lines of poured kerosene that glistened outward to the exterior walls of the mill.

The woman beside her shifted impatiently. “Are you sure you don’t want one, Esmé?” She turned the matchbook over in her hand, peeling back the flap to reveal its contents. “You’re the one who prepared all of this, and watching me light a match can’t possibly be _that_ exciting for y–”

“ _Trust_ _me_ , darling.” Georgina had begun to roll up the sleeves of her white oxford blouse, and Esmé found her attention drawn to the vulnerable, velvety skin on the underside of her forearms. Taking a step closer, she forced her gaze back upward, meeting Georgina’s eyes as she reached out to unfasten the two topmost buttons of the crisp linen shirt. “I’m already excited.”

One impeccably-manicured scarlet fingernail trailed over the neat red row of matchheads. “How excited?”

“Light one of these,” – a quick, brittle _snick_ echoed through the vast and empty mill as Esmé brushed her hand out of the way and plucked the leftmost match, holding it between her thumb and forefinger with a delicacy Georgina associated with children picking wildflowers, not adult women exchanging incendiary devices – “and I’ll show you.”

The air crackled and the silence stretched and Georgina felt nothing but the steady systole of her heart and the lightness of the match in her grasp and the warm, black weight of Esmé’s stare.

The matchhead rasped over the strike plate.

A flame flared in the darkness, flickered, flared again – and fell.

For a long, long moment, the hypnotist stood preternaturally still, eyes fixed on the matchstick where it lay curling into cinders. Her chest rose and fell at quick, even intervals, a light sheen of sweat – left over, the financier supposed, from digging the firebreak – visible in the V formed by her partly-open blouse. Then the kindling caught in earnest and a sudden bloom of brightness lit her face, throwing every furrow of her brow into sharp relief, every crease and crow’s foot that deepened as, with reflected fire flashing in the glass of her spectacles, she began to smile.

Esmé had never seen her look quite so beautiful.

“Georgie.” It was the delicate warmth of breath against the older woman’s neck that roused her. “ _God_ , Georgina.” Esmé reached for her hand, leading her toward the double doors. “Don’t make me wait.” She veered away from the exit and toward the catwalk stairs, ignoring the quizzical look she received as she tugged Georgina up the steps after her. When they reached the narrow landing at the top, she stopped abruptly and turned toward her, a hungry look on her face. “Here,” she declared.

“ _Here?_ ” Georgina glanced over her shoulder toward the small but spreading sea of flames lapping at the base of the furnace. “Esmé, _here_ is a tinderbox full of jet fuel.” It occurred to her as the words left her mouth that a tinderbox full of jet fuel sounded _exactly_ like the sort of birthday present she should have expected from the City’s most pyromaniacal financial advisor. _At least she didn’t gift-wrap the mill_. She stifled a grin. _Though knowing her, she probably tried._

“And you just dropped a match into it,” Esmé reminded her unnecessarily. “But really, darling, there’s no need to worry. Do you know why?” An elegant hand trailed down Georgina’s cheek, cold fingers on flushed skin, and she didn’t bother to wait for an answer before taking a step closer. “Because I’m very, _very_ good under pressure.”


	7. Chapter 7

The air smelled of smoke and sweat and kerosene, the woman in her arms tasted like ashes, and as the catwalk railing pressed insistently against the small of her back, Georgina couldn’t suppress a moan.

Arson had never been her preferred modus operandi. A whole host of smoke-choked nights with Olaf had convinced her that it required none of the subtle artistry of hypnosis and offered none of the satisfying brutality of a well-placed cane strike. In the intervening years, she had grown proficient with poisons (a development that would have appalled, if not necessarily surprised, her medical school professors), reliably lethal with a sword, and, of course, devastatingly effective when it came to mind control. The sublime pleasure of watching her will enacted by the unwilling had utterly overshadowed the appeal of other forms of villainy, and she had long ago ceased to take the term _fire-starter_ literally.

 _Maybe_ , she admitted as her lover’s tongue slid greedily into her parched mouth, _you shouldn’t write it off just yet_.

The City’s sixth-most-important financial advisor could hardly be described as hesitant under ordinary circumstances (unless, of course, hesitation happened to be _in_ ), but there was a particular urgency in her tonight. It showed itself in the quaking of her hands – not a nervous tremor, but the quiver of a Faraday cage just before a lightning strike – as she fumbled to unfasten the remaining buttons of Georgina’s blouse. It showed itself in the erratic rocking of her hips, in the way her nails dug into the soft skin of the smaller woman’s back when she clutched her closer, as if every molecule of air between them was a personal affront, and as it showed itself in the rough, needy edges of her tone, Georgina realized hazily that before Esmé Squalor, she had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be _craved_.

“Turn around.”

“Wh–?" The sight that greeted her when she opened her eyes stole the rest of the word from her throat.

Esmé’s hair had begun to come loose from its clasp, framing her face with coal-black tendrils that coiled and twisted in the breeze blowing in through the broken window behind her. From below, the firelight cast her in an unnatural glow, sharpening the line of her jaw and carving deep hollows beneath her cheekbones. By some miracle of cosmetic innovation – or so Georgina assumed – her lipstick remained more or less intact, but her eyeliner had smudged and her black eyes gleamed feverishly.

“Turn. _Around_ ,” she repeated.

Georgina turned.

The blaze had spread to the outer edges of the oblong, and the iron furnace had begun to glow in the heat. Flames – confined to their paths for the time being, but only just – extended outward along the straight trails of kerosene, and when the optometrist turned her gaze downward, she found herself staring down into an enormous, fiery eye.

“It’s a nice touch, isn’t it?”

“It is.” Her tone was one the younger woman couldn’t quite place. Pointedly, she arched her back. “But as long as we’re talking about _touches_ , I can think of one that might be even nicer.”

“What are you asking, Georgie?” Steely fingers closed over her hip and she felt a niggling sensation below her navel as Esmé’s free hand toyed with the button of her favorite black trousers. “Go on. _Say it_. You know how much I like hearing it.”

Between the flames spreading over the mill floor and the heat spreading between her thighs, it hardly seemed like a good time to argue. “Fuck me, Esmé,” she growled. “ _Now_.”

“You know,” – Esmé flicked open the trouser button with practiced ease – “I think I’m wearing off on you.” _Lace_ , she noted approvingly, and she felt Georgina’s abdomen clench as her fingertips teased below the waistband of her underwear. “Oh, _yes_ , darling, I’ve been a terribly bad influence, haven’t I? Sensible, _practical_ Doctor Orwell practically _begging_ _me_ to have my way with her, and in a burning building, no less…”

“Not. Begging.” Georgina knew the point was beyond moot, knew her protestations played straight into Esmé’s hand, but as the middle finger of that hand teased her open – slowly, _damn her_ , agonizingly slowly – she ground out the words anyway.

Esmé began to stroke in earnest. “Well, your mouth isn’t, anyway,” she said, increasing the pressure of her caresses as Georgina’s arousal coated her fingers. “But unless I’m _very_ much mistaken, there’s a spot just” – she traced her way unhurriedly upward – “about” – and here she reached the apex of her folds – “ _here_ ,” she drawled, circling her slickened fingertip over the stiffened nub she found there, “that’s positively _desperate_ for some atten– _oh_.”

She wasn’t wrong. The first buck of Georgina’s hips had been an entirely inadvertent reaction to the jolt of pleasure that sparked outward when dexterous, expert fingers played over the sensitive bundle of nerves. The second, however, was intentional. Offering a silent note of thanks to whichever apathetic mill worker had abandoned the small stack of boards she was standing on at the edge of the catwalk, Georgina took advantage of the temporary increase in her height; bracing herself against the handrail and praying it would hold, she shifted backward more deliberately.

The friction was indirect, but by no means ineffective, and she smirked as the younger woman succumbed almost immediately to the urge to grind against her. “What was that about _desperate_?”

“Oh, I never said you were the only one. I’ve been waiting all _night_ to get my hands on you.”

“And I take it this is –  _mm_ – the second half of my birthday present?”

“Mm, that depends.” Her hand slipped lower to cup Georgina’s dripping sex. “Are you sure we’re not making too much of a _fuss_?”

“Not yet, we’re not.”

Esmé knew a challenge when she heard one. Shimmering waves of hot air had begun to roil up from the fire below, but the snug, wet channel that closed around her fingers felt hotter still. “How about now?” She found a rhythm, curling and uncurling, tapping and rubbing, and felt Georgina’s hips stutter. “ _Yes_ ,” she hissed, “tell me what you _need_ , Georgie.”

“Talk to me.” It seemed much too late to be anything but direct. Soft lips closed over the tender spot behind her ear that never failed to make her feel as if she was on the edge of melting, and she let her head fall back against the taller woman’s shoulder, eyelids fluttering shut. "Esmé, your _voice_..."

 _“The production was ruined, predictably, by the voice of its leading actress, which this reviewer found not only irritatingly grating, but also greatly irritating.”_ The leading actress in question smirked against her lover’s neck. _Hah._ _Shows what **you** know, Snicket. _

The blaze below had spread well beyond the confines of the kerosene eye. “I have a confession to make.” It seemed to the optometrist that the flames had crept into Esmé's words, fierce and smoky and crackling with heat. “I know what you did to him.”

“You’re going to need to be m- _unh,_ ” groaned Georgina as they fell into a particularly delicious point-counterpoint of hips and hands. “Much more specific, Esmé.”

“To Olaf, darling.” The woman in her arms stiffened. “We confiscated a few bottles of brandy from one of the elders in the village where we were staying a few weeks ago and he got _very_ chatty while we were planting evidence. Oh, he told me all about his little hypnosis session, and all about your cane and the _scissors_ , and all I could do was sit there in that filthy cell getting _wetter_ ” – she punctuated the word with a pointed roll of her hips – “and _wetter_ , and wishing I’d been there to see it.”

Entirely unbidden but clear as day, the image assembled itself in Georgina’s mind. Olaf on his knees, bound and bloody in his smeared lipstick and his skewed wig and his borrowed dress as she sat at the edge of her desk with Esmé beside her, leaning against the curio cabinet with her head thrown back. _Laughing_ , she realized, and a tingling pressure coiled in her abdomen. _She’d be **laughing**_.

Moisture sluiced down Esmé’s fingers. “You like that, don’t you?” she chuckled, low and dirty. A shift in the angle of her wrist pressed the heel of her hand against Georgina’s clit as her fingers worked inside, and a strangled sound wrenched its way loose from the older woman’s throat. “Imagine if he knew, Georgie. Think what it would do to him if he saw us like this, if he found out _you’re_ the one I keep sneaking off to see, _you’re_ the one I can’t stop thinking about…” Her voice was a raw whisper now, but even over the roar of the inferno – _the walls_ , registered the optometrist dimly, _it’s reached the walls, we need to get out, there’s no **time** , **fuck** , she's good – _Georgina heard every word. “We could break him, darling." The fingernails of Esmé's free hand bit into her hip. "We could _destroy_ him.”

From the far end of the mill came the sound of a joist collapsing, the creak and groan of reinforced timber succumbing to flame, and in that moment, with the heat of Esmé’s body behind her and her fingers inside her and her voice still burning in her ear, Georgina succumbed along with it.


	8. Chapter 8

“‘Unlucky Farewell for Lucky Smells,’” read Georgina, grimacing down at the front page. “Whatever they’re paying their headline writer, it’s too much.”

The duvet – stolen wholesale sometime in the middle of the night, leaving her to make do with the flat sheet, her nightgown, and the thermostat – rustled beside her and Esmé emerged, tousle-haired and sleepy-eyed. “Whatssit say about us?” she slurred, blinking in the light that streamed in through the brownstone’s bedroom window.

“Let’s see.” Georgina skimmed the text. “Remote location…neither volunteer nor official fire departments notified in a timely manner…copious use of an accelerant, most likely kerosene, ruling out the possibility of accidental conflagration…tire tracks largely washed away by unusually heavy rainfall in the early morning hours… _ah_!” Her index finger tapped at the bottom of the page. “Police are attempting to contact Vivian Florence Dubois, the unfortunate and thus far uncommunicative owner of the property, to verify whether she intends to pursue an investigation into the identity of the arsonist.” Neatly re-folding the newspaper and setting it on her nightstand, she turned back to Esmé. “What do you think she’ll do?” she asked, the grave expression on her face not quite reaching her eyes. 

Esmé shucked off the duvet and stretched luxuriantly. “Well, for starters, she’d like to pursue the arsonist into the shower, because there’s a truly _ghastly_ amount of soot in her hair for some reason, and also because there are a few parts of the arsonist she didn’t get to investigate _quite_ thoroughly enough last night, and she has a feeling that if the investigation is successful, the arsonist might be convinced to make her breakfast afterward.” With that, she leaned over to brush a lingering kiss over Georgina’s lips before slipping out of bed and padding toward the bathroom.

Suddenly and acutely pleased that sleepwear appeared to be _out_ , Georgina followed.

**Author's Note:**

> Particular thanks to Tumblr user @hara-ng-etheria, who dropped the Esmé-in-jeans element of this fic into my askbox.
> 
> Even more particular thanks to @countolafnph for her immense ongoing support and co-conspiracy, and to @misskusakabe for continuing to get me over my writer's block in unconventional ways.


End file.
